Haaaaaaaaave You Met Dean?
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: Title because I'm in an odd mood. AU in which Dean and Castiel meet as strangers, and end up having a little more to do with each other than they expected. Plot partially stolen from the movie 'Dan in real life'.
1. Chapter 1

_This is based (read stolen) off the movie 'Dan in real life' which is excellent. And somehow it made me want to write this._

Dean's been driving for four hours straight with the kids in the backseat either squeaking excitedly (Ben) asking why they aren't allowed to drive (Adam) and whining that they are old enough to have a boyfriend, and why can't he just get over himself and let her date? (Anna).

He can't help but think he's a little bit of a failure as a supposedly all knowing domestic columnist – single father problem solver that he is. He stares out of the windscreen at the sloping road, knowing that they are thirty minutes from his parents cabin and then he'll get some time off as the kid's reacquaint themselves with their winter haunt, with uncle Sam, Grandpa John and Grandma Mary, as well as Gwen, Christian, Samuel and all the other extended family members that had been summoned up for the long week of holiday.

Anna, kicks the back of his seat.

"Do that again and you're grounded." He says, without turning round.

"You already grounded me for sneaking out with Michael." She snaps back, "Which I wouldn't have had to do if you'd stop being such an ass."

"And with the language you're up to two months of being grounded." Dean says calmly. "Care to make it three?"

Anna huffs.

"I know, I know." Dean down shifts and looks up at the ominous clouds overhead. "You're sixteen, you're old enough, you're in love..." he looks at her via the rear view mirror. "But you're sixteen, you're my daughter...and this isn't love, it's...it's infatuation." He knows she won't believe it, at sixteen he hadn't either. Which is how he'd ended up with three kids in the first place.

Anna glares daggers at him. Dean concentrates on the road.

Adam nudges his sister.

"Michael isn't even that hot – and he's an asshole."

"Shut up." Anna twists one of his fingers back. Dean glares at them both.

"Don't swear in front of Ben...and stop fighting in the back or we will die in a fiery inferno."

"You're a good driver Dad, it runs in the family." Adam says pointedly.

"I will flip us on purpose." Dean vows. "So behave."

Ben spots a seal lolling on the cold, slate grey sand as they drive along the edge of the coast. He yips excitedly and waves his Barbie at the window.

Dean is going to have to talk to him about the Barbie.

They reach the cabin, thankfully unharmed and with little to no squabbling from the back seat. Dean lets them out and hands round the luggage, Adam and Anna disappear in their various huffs and sulks, while Ben trips up the stairs and get's swept up by John, who's been waiting on their arrival.

"Hey, car break down again?" He calls from the porch, watching Dean struggle with his suitcase.

"One minor choke on the way up." He clicks the trunk shut and pockets his keys. "Nothing to get worked up about."

John bounces Ben up in the air once, then chivvies him inside to find a cookie. The cabin is pretty much nirvana after hours trapped in the impala on the windswept roads. It's all honey coloured wood, homemade blankets and primitive mugs of coffee. It hasn't changed since his parents bought it, over twelve years ago. Thinking back that far gives him the funny feeling it always does, as if he's just woken up from a pleasant dream, fully aware that he's not living in it anymore.

John seems to catch the odd cast to his features.

"Oh no, no sad faces right now – it's the holidays, the kids look forward to this all year." He pokes Dean in the chest and takes his suitcase by the front door. "I'll show you to your room, you can unpack and cheer up a little."

"I know where my room is." Dean argues.

"We had to move you, making space for everyone was harder than last year."

It turns out that Dean has been relegated to the utility room on the folding bed. The dryer is alarmingly close to the bed itself and the long light pull of the bare bulb hangs down to about an inch off of the pillow.

He forces a placated expression until his Dad potters off to see to the kids, then he shoves his suitcase under the bed and flops down on it, feeling the legs tremble under him.

He loves his family, he loves being up here with them...but sometimes, he wishes he could just catch a break from it all. From them, from himself. From being someone's Dad, someone's son or cousin or uncle. It doesn't happen often but he's in no mood for socialising when it does.

Thankfully, when he doesn't reappear for dinner, people take the hint and he's left to get some sleep over the rumbling of the dryer and the creaking of the bed springs.

The next morning he's feeling a lot better. He goes into the kitchen, gets oatmeal with a honey smiley face (because his Mom thinks that he's still eleven) and sits with his kids to eat. His Dad moans about the cost of gas and Dean pitches in, because it cost him almost a month's pay check to fill the car (and get it road worthy – but he's not mentioning that).

He helps to clear away the breakfast things and then he watches his Dad attempt to get the kayaks from the garage into lake-worthy condition. His offers of help are brushed off after while, so he goes to find something else to occupy his time.

The other members of the family have yet to arrive and he's going a little stir crazy just watching Anna try to get phone signal while Ben dangles his Barbie by the hair on the porch. His Mom taps his on the shoulder and offers him a crumpled five dollar bill.

"Go get the papers, I'll watch them."

He knows it's just a way to get him out of the house and away from the memories of bringing Lisa up here, but he takes it gratefully and goes out to the car, muffled in a sweater and his jacket. The nearest store is out by the ferry port, a tiny building a couple of miles away. He gets the ignition going on his third try and finds his way out onto the main road. If a single lane of untrimmed asphalt could be called a main road.

The store itself is a bookstore come bait shack, owned by a struggling author friend of his Father's – Chuck Shirley, who Dean knows only because they did the same writing course at the community college one summer. Chuck did however recently acquire a wife, so the bait and book store now also provided muffins in three flavours, and Chuck's so busy on the phone with her that he barely notices Dean come in.

The newspapers are at the back of the store, he knows that from experience, and as he rounds a stack into the empty store he hears the bell on the door ring behind him. He turns to look over the spines of the books beside him, he's in no hurry to get back to the cabin, he's enjoying his freedom for a while, a few guilty minutes of being unattached and unknown, even if it's illusory.

"Hello, can you..." The stranger's voice filters through the silence. That peculiar silence that exists only in bookstores, a mixture of sacred quiet and the scent of paper and brown carpet.

Chuck must raise a finger, it's a gesture Dean has seen him use often, and he hears the words, "I'll be with you in a minute".

Dean hops up onto a stool, it's a mark of how Chuck organises things that means that even he can't reach the top shelf without help, exploring some paperback detective novels with interest.

A voice behind him makes him turn around.

"Can you help me?"

Dean turns around a finds that the polite, if slightly unpolished voice , belongs to a man slightly younger than him, blue eyed, messy haired and wearing a dark blue dress shirt and dark brown cords.

"I'm looking for a book." He says, then winces half self deprecatingly. "I mean, obviously I'm looking for a book..."

"What kind?" Dean asks, dropping down from the stool and trying to stop himself from raking his eyes over the man again. He did not need this, not right now.

"I don't know...something...funny?" The man frowns. "Something to make an awkward weekend a little less awkward...but not 'laugh out loud' funny...or making fun of other people." He catches Dean's eye and seems to realise that he's being ridiculous. "But also meaningful...perhaps, romantic, but not Hollywood...more real." He says, a joking light passing across his face. "And, uh, if it could uh, sneak up on you, surprise you, and at the same time make you think that what you thought wasn't only right, in a wrong kind of way, but when you're wrong, there's a certain rightness in your wrongness... And at the same time, not"

"Hmmm..." Dean pretends to consider, getting slightly caught up in this man's humour. "You're not going to get all that in one book."He walks around the shelves, pulling books down at random and then depositing the pile in front of the man, on a wheeled book cart.

"Ok...so you've got poetry...here's some Dickinson, some Plath...standard stuff. Then there's this," he picks up a paperback. "The life of Ghandi...who was a fairly awesome dude." The guy is smiling at him, which Dean takes as a good sign. "And...uhh...__Anna Karenina..."

"Which is always hilarious." The guy says, dead pan.

"Actually for humour..." Dean holds up a picture book. "Can't go wrong with this."

The other man looks at the copy of 'Everybody Poops' and fights a smirk.

"Classy choice."

"I try." Dean smiles back.

"Ok." Chuck comes down from his counter and meanders through the stacks to find them. "You needed help?"

"I'm fine now, actually." The guy grins. "I'd like all of these and you..." he gestures at Dean, "Should get one hell of a commission."

Chuck takes the books and begins to wander back to the register, muttering "He doesn't actually work here."

The other man turns back to Dean.

"Busted." He scuffs his foot on the floor, aware of how ridiculous he's been. "You just looked kind of...helpless..." he looks up awkwardly. "I was just taking things at random."

"I know." The man looks at him with mild humor and a sliver of appreciation. "But it worked...come on, I'll buy you a muffin."

"You don't have to..."

"Never say no to free food." He advises, already following after Chuck. Dean trails after him, newspapers entirely forgotten.

How he ends up with Cas, the name the guy gives him just as easily as he hands over the muffin, in the ferry waiting room, talking about Lisa, he'll never know.

But somehow, Cas, all silence and eyes, manages to get the deeper parts of his mind exposed without even trying. Dean tells him about meeting Lisa, finding out he'd gotten her pregnant, marrying her and raising Anna, having Adam and Ben as they went. How he'd once written a fiction novel that no one had read, and that now he was a columnist making ends meet with three kids to look after.

He talks about Lisa getting sick when Ben was two, how they'd found the cancer just a little too late to do anything but make her comfortable. How somewhere in between Lisa starting to throw up all the time and lose weight and her finally dying, he'd discovered he was gay - that he'd always somehow known, but that it was one hell of a time for it all to come to a head.

Cas nods sagely, splits his muffin with him and touches his fingers gently when Dean falters on the night he'd found out exactly who he was – the night he'd gotten drunk trying to forget that Lisa was dying, that his kids were suffering at their grandparent's while he tried to pull everything together. He'd gotten royally, shamefully drunk, and groped a stranger, a man he'd never met before and never seen since. But he'd found something there, in the heat of the moment and sodden with alcohol and unshed misery, that he'd never found with Lisa.

He blinks out of the confessional trance to find Cas's, fingers still lightly caressing his hand as he looks up at him.

"I'm so sorry, you shouldn't have let me get into that." He mutters, embarrassedly looking down into the remaining crumbs of his muffin. Cas wordlessly gets up from the booth and comes to sit beside him, pressing their shoulders and thighs together in an odd display of comfort, which threatens to send Dean over the edge into open tears. Cas's hand falls into his and they sit there for an age of silence, which ends when Cas squeezes his hand.

"You're a good man you know." He says softly, conversationally. "I've known you for two hours and I already know that."

"You don't just get to say things like that." Dean points out.

"You don't get to tell me what to do." Cas murmurs, twisting a little to face him, bringing their faces into close enough proximity that Dean can smell the blueberries on his breath and see the slight twist of uncertainty to his mouth. He thinks 'I'm going to kiss you' just as the other man moves away.

"I'm sorry...but I really need to go." He looks at him apologetically, truly upset by this interruption. "I'm expected."

"Which I'dve known if I hadn't done all the talking." Dean says.

"You needed to talk." Cas says simply. "But I...I have a thing to get to." He says, looking fairly miserable at the prospect.

"Well...thanks for sticking around, I never bare my soul without an audience." Dean attempts to joke, but Cas looks at him with a slight head tilt, a look of concern on his face.

"If you need to talk to someone...well..." he grimaces, half laughing awkwardly. "This is awkward because I'm with someone." He looks up at Dean shyly. "but... if I gave you my number? And you called? We'd just be two people...finishing a conversation."

"Can't argue with that." Dean says quietly, though all the saliva just left his mouth in a combination of nerves and the sudden realisation that maybe, just maybe, this guy was interested.

Cas smiles in the kind of twisty 'I have a secret hehe' way that was popular with Anna when she was ten. He fishes a scrap of paper and a pen out of his pocket and scrawls down his number.

"I'll see you around." Dean says, watching Cas climb into his car and then drive away.

He feels...better. Just like that, a little better than he's felt for a while. He's had his moment of not being somebody's anything – son, father, brother, husband. He's sat in a tiny room overlooking the ocean and eaten a muffin with a stranger...and he feels better.

He can barely keep himself from speeding home, he feels lighter, freer, all the clichés about getting a load taken off your mind? He feels them all.

And if his mind periodically strays back to the scrap of paper in his pocket, and the amazing eyes he's been staring into for the past hour or so. Well, that's no bad thing. It's been four years since Lisa passed away, long enough for him to muddle through his big-gay-widower crisis and come out the other side more sure of himself, if a little scarred and battered. He's ok with himself, and so, thankfully, are his parents.

Smaller mercies seem to be his lot.

He pulls up at the cabin, belatedly realising that he's forgotten the papers and that he's been gone for long enough for them to worry. He's surprisingly mellow at the prospect of being chewed out by his parents. Opening the door he finds that his Uncle Bobby, Aunt Ellen and Jo have arrived, as in fact have most of the family. Samuel, Gwen and Christian as sitting opposite the Singers in the living room.

"Hey." Ellen greets him comfortably. "You're mom said you left hours ago - what's with the wait?"

Bobby's perpetual frown smoothes out a little. "She's getting all kinds of pissy without her crossword."

Ellen elbows him in the side.

Jo shoots him a 'parents are so humiliating' look, the same one she's had since she was a teenager, though now she's twenty four she really should know better than to expect any different.

"I...uh..." Dean can't stop the stupid smile from unrolling on his face. Sometimes he wishes he was sneakier. "I met someone."

Jo claps excitedly. Bobby remains unenthused and the Cambells look up with polite interest, their silent nods of greeting having been their only input so far.

"A boy?" Jo squeaks. Dean catches Christian's frown. Figures. He's always kind of hated his mom's side of the family. But then his dad's 'family' consists of Bobby, Rufus and Pastor Jim – neither of whom are related to him by blood. Trust fate to stick him between Christians and his Father's poker buddies.

"Yes a boy." Dean says, as gruffly as possibly, he does after all need to retain some man points here. Though Jo has always been too interested in his love life, it's sort of spiralled since he came out. She'd even tried to set him up with her friend Ash, who it turned out was not gay, just overly friendly.

"Tell us everything." Jo jumps up and grabs his arm.

"Was he cute?" God bless Gwen for being somewhat decent. Dean turns to her and smiles gratefully.

"Yes, obviously." He grins. "Someone in the family has to have standards."

Gwen pulls a face.

"I have standards." The familiar voice comes from behind him and Dean turns, he's never going to get used to Sam being bigger than him, and yet still moving so silently. "They're low...but I have 'em." Sam hugs him before Dean can dodge out of the way, backing off after a few seconds to mock glare at him.

"So, is there going to be a gentleman caller? because we already spent your dowry."

Dean punches him on the arm.

"Or you know, you could use your words." Sam quips.

"Shut up Sam?" Dean tries.

"Never gonna happen." Sam claps him on the back and steers him out of the living room, much to Jo's disappointment. "Come on, Mom and Dad are in the kitchen."

"And? Anything special about that?" Dean allows himself to be steered, to a point, but then pulls free of Sam and makes it to the kitchen under his own steam.

"Dean met a hot boy." Sam announces to the kitchen at large, causing his Dad to choke on his coffee and Mary to raise an eyebrow.

"Nice, Sam." Dean grumbles, just as John recovers enough to say, "I don't think I can take much more of this."

Dean has time to wonder what the hell that means, just as Sam bounds back into the centre of the room, this time towing another unsuspecting victim by the hand.

"So, come on – spill. Who's the hottie?" Sam says, in that way that suggests he's fighting to remain casual because he wants Dean to squirm in his own curiosity.

And Dean is squirming, to be fair.

Though, if anything, Cas is squirming more.

Sam finally lets his excitement overthrow his desire to keep Dean hanging, mainly because his brother is just standing there in surprised silence.

"Dean, this is Castiel." Sam announces, "He's from my gym." He grins broadly. "I...uh...kind of ambushed him with the whole 'family retreat' thing." He twists to look at Castiel sweetly. "You forgive me right?"

Castiel smiles tightly.

"So, Dean, Castiel – Castiel, Dean." Sam gestures between them. "Someone else can talk now."

Cas, Castiel – raises his hand for Dean to shake, an apology easy to read in his eyes.

"Almost everyone calls me Cas." He says, Dean reads it as, _'I wasn't lying to you. I had no idea this was going to happen. I'm sorry.' _

"So...tell us about this guy." His Mom presses.

Dean winces internally. Castiel casts his eyes down to the floor, a slight flush creeping up to his cheek bones.

"Actually...I'm going to take Ben for a drive." Dean says, realising that he's still kind of holding Castiel's hand. He gives it one more decisive shake and lets it fall back out of his grip.

"It was nice meeting you." He says, already walking out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean tries to focus on driving Ben around the coastal haunts, the light house, the shell shack and the 'I can't believe it's still open' bowling alley. Ben collects muddy shells while Dean huddles on the shoreline, wrapped tight in his jacket against the blustering winds. Internally he's just shouting 'Fuck!' over and over again – ineloquent but visceral. Outside he's just a parent watching his son, as Ben runs to and fro on the grey sand, a red jacketed pirate flag of motion.

He wishes he could stay out here forever and sulk, but unfortunately he has to get back to the cabin and act like meeting his brother's boyfriend is the social event of his life.

When he gets back everyone is setting up for dinner, the long table in the dining room is prepared and set with bowls of corn, rolls and steamed vegetables, but there's a reassuringly smoky scent of meat in the air.

Ben runs off to find someone to show his shells to, and Dean takes a few minutes to go back to his room and change for dinner – dress shirt and a clean pair of jeans. Nothing fancy. It's not like he's making an effort.

Except when he comes out of the utility room and takes the screen door out to the porch that looks over the lake, he spots Cas, and feels just a little glad that he picked his nicest shirt.

Because he's stupid, and apparently pain is all he's looking for these days.

Castiel is not alone, and as Dean gets closer he spots Ben crouched on the deck beside him, yellow rubber boots poking out from under his slicker like duck feet, as he shows off his collection. Castiel is kneeling beside him, a look of intent concentration on his face as he handles the common calcium shapes as if they're the rarest Mediterranean sea treasures.

Dean leans against the rail of the porch, ignoring the cold and staying just out of sight.

"I like the flat ones." Ben chirps, clapping two of them together to demonstrate exactly why he likes them. Castiel picks up a tiny, whirled shell and blows into it, producing a high pitched shriek as the air escapes through a chink in the end.

Ben drops his own shells back into the bucket, spattering an already ravaged Barbie with muck.

"Show me!"

Dean stifles a huff of laughter but Castiel looks up anyway, his features slipping from pleased to unsure in a micro second. Dean smiles to show it's ok, then swoops in to pick Ben up.

"Come on buddy, go wash for dinner." He knows that the whistling shell is going to annoy the crap out of everyone before the end of the day, but right now it's still entertaining enough to hear as Ben bounds off to the washroom.

It's better than the awkward silence that builds up once he's gone.

"I had no idea this was going to happen." Castiel says quietly.

"Yeah, he kind of corners people when he's got something to..."

"Not Ben." Castiel chides. He sighs. "If I'd have known you were Sam's brother..."

"But nothing happened, right? So it's ok." Dean says, too quickly, brushing it off as nothing.

It doesn't feel like nothing.

Castiel looks at him as if 'nothing' was the furthest thing from his mind.

"Right." Castiel says, with forced casualness.

"So...you met at the gym?" Dean says, for lack of anything else to say.

"Yes." Castiel snaps back to attention. "He had the rowing machine and I..." he swallows the anecdote, he knows Dean doesn't want to hear it. "I just got out of...something complicated." He says quietly. "And Sam's...not complicated, which is what I needed." He catches Dean's eye. "Need." He corrects, guiltily.

"Good." Dean says bluntly. "Well...he's my brother so...anything that's good for him..."

They shuffle awkwardly, Dean leaning on the porch rail, Castiel picking at the grit under his nails.

"Dean!" Sam flings open the screen door. "You're back, seriously, we've been waiting forever for dinner." He wraps his arms around Castiel, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead in puppyish enthusiasm.

Dean braces himself.

Whatever's good for Sam.

"Well I could eat a...huge amount of pie." He says tiredly, failing at a simile. "I'll see you guys in there."

He has to hear the 'how they met' story, of course he does. The family wouldn't hear of it being missed. So he hears Sam happily recount how he was on the rowing machine and Castiel was on the treadmill, like he always was, and Sam...

Dean eats pie like he's trying to ferry it into the afterlife. The chat continues around him and his parents won't let up on getting all the details, what Castiel does (private tutor) where he comes from (his mother is French, his father from California) his taste in wine (none) music (dubious) and sports (watches football at thanksgiving, practices yoga).

It's like being on the most awkward, crowded, first date ever – and only they know it.

It's like being shown a game show prize that someone else has won.

Castiel glances at him apologetically whenever he isn't smiling at Mary or looking up at Sam like he just proposed – Dean abandons his latest slice of pie and bolts from the table halfway through dessert out of sheer humiliation. He says something vague about taking care of the dishes and it seems to pass unnoticed by everyone at the table.

In the kitchen he leans against the side of the sink and closes his eyes. One moment of calm, that's all he wants.

Unfortunately, his brain isn't playing ball.

Castiel is _embarrassed _for him. Really, who wouldn't be? An almost middle aged and still practically closeted widower with three kids, no boundaries and a tendency to spew personal information at strangers.

He's made himself look like a dick. A total, utter...

"Hey man." Sam walks into the kitchen, hands pushed into the pockets of his jeans and a sheepish look on his face.

"Hey." Dean says blankly, turning the faucet and watching hot water flow into the sink.

"Thought I'd give you a hand." Sam says, coming to stand beside him and picking up a sponge in a vacant kind of way.

"I can actually handle dishes Sam, you should see the messes the kid's make." Dean busies himself with soap and sorting the cutlery from the stack of dinner plates.

He washes in silence while Sam toys with the sponge.

"Are you...mad at me? for bring Castiel to this?" Sam ask after a while, with the kind of high note to his voice that only comes out when he's trying to be perceptive and womanly.

"How can I be mad? It's not like there's ever been a rule against it." Though he is thanking his Mom, God, Christ and all the angel's for the edict about not sharing a room until marriage.

"Not an answer." Sam points out gently.

"No Sam, I'm not mad." He rinses a glass and puts it to one side.

He washes a plate, a bowel, a spoon.

"Is it because of Lisa?" Sam asks quietly, inevitably.

"No, it's really not." Dean swallows everything else he wants to say and starts scrubbing a saucepan. He's kind of grateful that it's getting dark outside, he can't lie convincingly in full light.

"It's only been four years Dean...it doesn't have to be ok- "

"Well it is, so drop it." Dean slaps a soapy hand down on a baking sheet and yanks it down into the water.

Sam huffs softly and Dean doesn't have to look to know the look he's getting.

"I said it's fine." He grits out.

"I just..." Sam presumably scrubs a hand through his hair. "I didn't want to upset you...but he's important to me, I wanted him to meet you – not 'the family' just...you're my big brother, you're important."

Dean fists the handle of a dinner knife under the water, unable to move under the force of his own guilt.

"He's great Sam." He says, and a hot, prickly weight swells in his chest as he does so. "Really, so...don't worry about me ok? It's my stuff, I'll deal with it." He manages to turn towards Sam then, and the half concerned, half pleased expression on his face is like a kick to the side. "Get back to the interrogation room before they eat the poor guy alive, ok?"

Sam places the sponge on the counter and looks ready to go, so Dean turns back to his washing. A couple of seconds later he returns from the dining room and sets new dishes down on the side of the sink, Dean drops his dish cloth and looks up,

"Sam, seriously if you don't get..."

Castiel looks at him placidly.

"Sam left." He says, unhelpfully.

"I thought you were getting grilled by the in-laws." Dean says pointedly.

"I was granted a temporary reprieve." Castiel sighs. "They're talking about you now."

"Thanks for telling me." Dean glares back down into the dish water sourly.

"I think Sam's worried that you're upset over Lisa." Castiel continues, and for all his good qualities, apparently a sense of self preservation isn't part of his brain. "Maybe because this is where you met her." He lets the sentence hang. "You didn't tell me that."

"What, during the seven hours that I've known you?" Dean hisses, finally snapping under the weight of Castiel's level questioning. "You don't know me, ok? And you don't have to pretend that you..."

"I am, worried about you." Castiel insists, keeping his voice low and level. "What I said earlier hasn't changed...if you need to talk..."

"I really don't want your pity." Dean stresses, already feeling about as humiliated as he can take.

"That's not what this is." Castiel says quietly.

"Oh yeah, then what is it?" Dean hisses.

It's plain that Castiel doesn't have an answer for him. Instead, deft fingers tweak the cloth from Dean's hand, touching the wet skin gently.

"My concern for you, is nothing like pity." Castiel says quietly, carefully. "I just know what it's like...losing someone, and it is a terrible thing to go through alone."

"Well, I'm not alone." Dean tries to make himself sound scathing, but it comes out as a thin whisper.

"Not being by yourself, doesn't mean you're not alone." Castiel says softly. "You should know that."

They stand like that for a long time, but it seems to pass so quickly, without awkwardness or painful silence, it's only at Sam's call from the other room that they break apart and wander their separate ways – Castiel back to Sam, Dean off to bed.

It has been one day. One single, solitary day – and yet, despite knowing he should keep his distance from Castiel, Dean's already gotten caught up with him twice.

And he's pretty sure only one of those was his fault.


	3. Chapter 3

Two charged conversations aside, Dean's really ready to not feel guilty himself over the time he's spent with Cas.

He met him, they'd talked, it had been awesome and lightening and possibly the most comprehensive conversation he's had with a living person in four years. Hell, It had come close to rivalling some of the one sided talks he'd had with Lisa in the past couple of years, and in most cases comparing someone with a nonresponsive granite plinth would not be complimentary.

In the case of Dean, it's the highest measure of his esteem.

And in no way did he lose sleep over the fact that he knows Castiel would understand that right off the bat.

Yesterday he'd spoke only twice with him, and ok, those conversations might not have been whiter than white in terms of personal stuff being shared and odd intimacy descending – but he figures no one who overheard them would accuse Castiel of cheating on Sam. So, as a guide to how guilty he should be feeling, that indicates that he has no real reason to feel as awful as he does.

His continuing gullet full of bilious self loathing is something of an inconvenient surprise, and does not temper his bad mood at being snubbed by both Anna and Adam at breakfast the next day.

Anna of course, is still mad at him for bodily dragging her out of the cafe where she'd gone to meet Michael. That was three days ago, and Dean can't help feeling a little bad about it in retrospect. Of course, in the moment it had felt like the right thing to do – get underage daughter away from boy within kissing distance. It was a fatherly impulse, and any other dad would have done the same. Even Lisa's father, with whom he'd had a pretty good relationship (right up until the point he'd gotten Lisa pregnant) had threatened him with castration if he ever hurt his daughter.

The presence of Adam and Ben was clear testament to the fact that he hadn't followed through on that threat.

Dean thinks that he probably would, especially if anyone ever got Anna pregnant – if only because she'd be insane once she got a bloodstream full of pregnancy hormones, and someone would have to pay for that.

Adam on the other hand, just wants to drive the car. Which he can't, because loves his car more than he loves having his testicles in full working order and 2. The car is actually so dangerously broken than it might possibly kill his son.

He's exaggerating a little, but the impala stalls like a bitch, breaks down without warning and has an odd relationship with gravity at higher speeds than 30mph. He really would fix her up, but he's saving every penny of his pay check for college funds.

Which will be kind of pointless if Adam dies in a car crash and Anna gets knocked up and goes to live in a trailer park.

Ben on the other hand will probably be fine...providing he doesn't run off to Vegas to become a drag queen.

Dean WILL talk to him about the Barbie. When he has a minute.

However, his mood positively dive-bombs when he shuffles out onto the porch in his jeans and hooded fleece to get a bit of air. Castiel and Sam are outside on the lawn, working out.

Dean feels his stomach soar at the sight of Castiel in a thin grey T-shirt and almost skin tight workout pants, twisted like a particularly awesome pretzel of toned limbs on the grass. His heart sours when Castiel straightens out, only to have Sam hold his legs up for him and slowly lower them to Castiel's chest, until they're almost nose to nose.

Dean chews over his guilty resentment along with his cinnamon toast on the other side of the porch. A distinctly pink cheeked Cas joins him a while later, sitting down on the board floor to do toe touches and cooling down stretches. He glances up through unnaturally thick eyelashes and a flopping fringe of hair when Dean coughs pointedly and shifts in his chair to look out over the woods behind them.

Castiel stands up after a second of stillness and shifts awkwardly from foot to foot.

"Sam and I are going for a run later...if you wanted to come with." He offers, sort of like an olive branch, if you wanted to make up with someone who'd rather die than have his kid brother outstrip him at olive picking.

Shut up, Dean knows what he means.

"I'm good thanks." He says gruffly.

Castiel bites his lip and fiddles with the ties on his workout pants.

Dean's not distracted. He's not. He forces his eyes upwards, but Castiel's eyes are, if anything, more captivating that the subtle lines of his body under thin cotton.

"Are you sure? He always goes faster than me anyway." Castiel offers, once again targeting Dean's weak spot with deadly accuracy.

"I'm not really a runner." Dean says, which is true, but not entirely friendly.

Castiel looks at him as if assessing the truth/avoidance ratio.

"More of a weights guy?" Castiel uncaps a bottle of water and downs half of it in one long swallow.

"As it happens." Dean sips his coffee bitterly.

"I guessed." Castiel says, and Dean's fairly certain by this point that A. Castiel is fucking with him, and B. The effect it's having on his is cruelly distinct.

"What part of this seems fair to you?" Dean practically growls, because he's at the end of his freaking rope here, and if Castiel is going to tease him like a flirt in a bar he's going to call him on it.

Castiel blinks at him.

"I'm not doing anything."

Dean has the sudden realisation that Castiel is just being casually friendly, just as Cas apparently realises how Dean's been taking his efforts at neutral conversation.

Both men flush awkwardly, and Dean's guilt notches itself a little higher.

"Sorry." He mutters.

"No I..." Castiel taps the water bottle on the deck rail. "I don't really get a lot of offers." He swallows awkwardly and seems to have no idea what to do with his hands. "I'm not used to someone looking at me like..."

"Like a freaking stalker...I get it." Dean curls his toes up in their canvas sneakers and patiently waits for the end to come in the form a lightning bolt or a huge hole in the ground right under his chair.

Castiel looks at him evenly.

"Like I'm worth being interested in." He corrects.

Dean figures there's a story to this guy, this improbably, indelicate, godsend of a person – who for some reason seems buried in loss and completely unaware of how perfect he is, of how he seems to attract Dean's eye like a white rabbit amongst rats.

Ugh, he needs sleep.

Unfortunately, or though lucky chance – Dean isn't really sure, this is the moment Sam chooses to emerge from the kitchen.

"Hey Dean." He says lightly, hand wandering to Castiel's hip automatically, though Castiel's eyes are still rooted on Dean's, as if he's aware of the question that the other man was about to ask.

"_What happened to you?"_

"We're going for a run." Sam announces happily. "By the way, I think Ben's looking for you – he found a seagull with a bent wing, he's kind of moved it into the spare room with him." Sam shrugs in a 'kids are weird' kind of way and pats Castiel's ass, before bolting off across the lawn. "I'm gonna win." He shouts back over his shoulder.

Dean rolls his eyes, at himself, at Ben and his seaside fetish, and as a way of allowing Castiel to jog away guilt free.

Cas shoots him an apologetic, and somehow gut wrenchingly conflicted look before he turns to follow Sam.

Dean watches him go, a lean dark figure moving with unexpected energy, and a focus he would have laid money on. He wondered if Castiel knew he was watching him, unable to tear his eyes from his straight back and flexing, coltish legs.

He hopes he doesn't mind.

When Castiel disappears into the tree line, Dean goes back inside for a refill on his coffee, thus fortified he ascends the stairs to seek out his youngest son. In Ben's room, an old crib, a wooden thing that had once belonged to Mary herself, and then to Anna in her younger years, currently housed the seagull, a squawking undersized thing with a broken wing and a bowl full of cheerios.

"Ben." He sighs. "About the seagull..."

"His name's Skipper." Ben says absently, currently trying to feed the bird a fistful of cereal.

Dean counts to ten.

"Ok...well, Grandma and Grandpa don't really allow pets in the house..." He says, preparing himself to take the bird back outside.

Ben looks at him as if he's just suggested that they eat it for dinner.

"...so, we can put it out in the tool shed." He relents, "and you can go see it once you get dressed."

Ben grins and bolts off to find some clothes.

Dean is left with a battered sea bird and a growing sensation of surreal powerlessness.

Once the bird is happily ensconced in the shed, and Ben has gone to dig worms for him on the edge of the wood under Anna's grudging supervision, Dean sits down on the porch again and tries to draft a column for the next weekends addition.

He plays with the idea of family get togethers, of teenage boundary exploration and the trials of witnessing your spawn make the same mistakes you did at their age (namely, underage romance and a predilection for muscle cars.

Then again, he could go with the saga of 'wanting your brother's new boyfriend so much that it actually hurts, and being pretty damn sure that he wants you back'.

Although, 'being pretty sure that the only thing that'll make you happy will also break your brother's heart' well, that was bound to sell copies.

He put the pad and pen down in disgust and wondered if eleven in the morning was too early to get drunk. He glowered irritably out at the forest, he was a Father of three, a widower and stuck in a house with his parents.

It was always the wrong time to get drunk.

He finds Adam some time later, happily reading through a battered journal in the living room. He seems at least to be in a better mood than he had been that morning.

"Hey." Dean drops into an armchair and reaches for a newspaper. "What are you reading?"

Adam glances up, face as good natured and warm as if he'd never ignored Dean's very existence less than three hours previously.

Teenagers. Dean swears they're insane. Especially those that share his bloodline.

"Travellers journal." Adam says, crunching a mouthful of goldfish shaped cheese crackers and offering the pack to Dean.

"Interesting?" Dean asks absently, scanning the headlines for anything interesting. Some guy in Kansas with a haunted house catches his interest, he turns the page. Unbelievable that these things should get play in the papers, and his column can't get syndicated.

"Yeah, freaking fascinating." Adam says seriously. "I just got to the part about skinny dipping in Tibet..." Adam flicks a page over with interest. "Sounds like he was out of his tree."

Dean gets up and plucks the diary from his hands, tenuous rapport be damned.

He glances down at the page and reads enough to know that he doesn't want his teenage son to be reading this.

"Who gave you this?" He asks.

Adam looks shifty.

"Where did you take it from?" Dean asks tiredly.

"I found it in Castiel's room." Adam bristles defensively. "Uncle Sam said Castiel travelled all over the world, so I asked him last night at dinner and he said that he had...and that he had journals from back then."

Dean glares at him.

"I was going to put it back!" Adam exclaims.

"Well now you don't have to." Dean says. "I'll do it – go play with your brother."

Adam knows enough not to argue, but leaves the room and goes to find Ben.

Dean glances down at the journal in his hands.

He should probably return it.

Probably.


	4. Chapter 4

_Thanks for all the reviews, I know it's summer and people are away, but they still make me incredibly happy. BTW all the work I had to do a month ago? That I shouldn't have updated because of...well, I got some marks back and I got a solid 2:1 so 'Wooo!' I'm happy. _

Dean didn't mean to read the whole thing.

He meant to return it...then he'd opened it, and he'd just thought to read the first few pages...then he was over halfway through at it seemed stupid not to finish it.

Now he has, and he sits on the bench at the edge of the darkening woods, book clutched in one hand and a guilty, sick feeling in his stomach, as if he's just eaten an entire tray of cookies, fast and secretly.

Again.

Dean's not been great with impulse control, right from childhood. Just in case the three kid's and the affectation of the impala weren't clues enough.

Now though, now his head's swimming with Cas – he's downloaded the guy's twenties, his personality, in one long inhalation of speed reading. He knows what Castiel did in Tibet, Thailand, Cuba and Amsterdam...ok, so a lot of it is very similar (and who's have thought it to look at the guy) but there are some things...private things, that Dean should have closed the book on and forgotten about. In amongst Castiel's experiences of monasteries and retreats, protests and communes and backpacking and nipping across borders...there's other stuff. Castiel's first love, a girl named Meg, who'd caught him in bed with his second love, David, and ditched out on him – burning his passport and taking all his money as she did so. There's a vivid recollection of working as a cleaner in a brothel, of his struggle with his various addictive pastimes when push came to shove, his recovery and calmer trips to Russia and France.

He'd had an affair with a married man in Nice. Been devastated when he found out that he was the 'other man'.

Dean had felt particularly bad about reading that.

He's taken a holiday to Moscow and met a man named Richard.

The diary petered out after that.

He's still swimming with knowledge, heavy and sodden with it, as he makes his way up to the house. He has to put the book back with Castiel's things before it's loss is noted. He also feels like he should own up to reading it.

He manages to get inside the house and upstairs without being spotted. He can hear Ben telling Sam about his bird, and his parents are arguing with Bobby good naturedly in the kitchen over the proper recipe for chilli. Perfect.

He pauses outside of the door to Anna's room on his way across the landing – Anna is talking to someone, but he can't hear the replies. One of the bonuses of conducting his own guilty relations is that he knows how to spot someone doing the same thing.

"...I know, I miss you too...God I wish...I know, but he's just not listening to me...oh Mike..."

Dean opens the door and glares at his daughter, seated as she is on the window ledge, one hand clutching her cell phone.

She glares back.

"I have to go...yeah...yeah...he found me. I love you." she snaps the phone shut and as if on cue her eyes begin to well up.

"Anna..." he begins half heartedly.

"Don't." She says, voice high and wavery with teenage hysteria. "You...don't, understand, how hard this is...Dad, I love him."

"And how long have you known him?" Dean says pointedly.

Anna jumps up from her perch and glowers at him spitefully. "That's not the point, Dad..."

"Three days, Anna..." Dean says stonily. "You can't know you love someone, in three days."

"But I do! And you don't have to worry because..." she wipes a tear away with the back of her hands. "He's the one that wants to wait...he respects me, he wants it to be special."

Dean gawps at her in disbelief.

"How is that supposed to make me feel better!" He sputters, then recovers himself enough to hold out his hand. "Give me the phone." He says, insistently.

Anna glares at him poisonously, but hands over the phone with enough tears in her eyes to make Dean feel terrible about himself. He's trying to do the right thing here, why can't she see that?

Anna bolts past him and hurries downstairs, leaving Dean with another death glare burnt into his face, and the book still burning in his hand, reminding him of his original purpose.

He leaves the room and continues along the landing, finding the door to Castiel's bedroom cracked slightly open. Perfect. He opens the door slowly and slides inside, already looking for the best place to put the book.

"Uh...Dean...what the hell are you doing?" Castiel asks, looking up from his own book, perched as Anna was on the window ledge, one foot against the wall, the other dangling towards the floor.

"I was...uh..." Dean shuffles slightly and grips the book until his knuckles pop. "I was going to put this back."

"Good. I was missing it." Castiel says expressionlessly. He twists until he's sitting facing Dean, "Did you read it?"

"I'm sorry." Dean says automatically. "I was...I was curious about you."

Castiel looks at him levelly.

"You know, Sam's never asked to see it?" he says softly. "He asks me things...but they're about hotels and the weather there...what it was like." He shakes his head. "there's a lot more to those years than that."

"I can gather." Dean says dryly.

Castiel smiles at him, hand twitching to display the dust jacket of the book he's been reading.

"I'm no entirely innocent of privacy invasion." He admits, as Dean recognises the cover of his novel, his one and only attempt at fiction writing.

"You shouldn't read that." He says quietly.

"You read my diary." Castiel points out.

"Yes, but you shouldn't read that because it's crap." Dean insists.

"I think it's pretty good." Castiel glances down at the page. "Very dark in places." He looks thoughtful for a moment before cocking his head to one side casually "And I'm being careful, wouldn't want to ruin a first edition."

"It's the only edition." Dean admits.

"Well then you might have to sign it for me." Castiel teases.

In the odd silence that descends on them, Dean has only one question to ask, and it's one he knows he really shouldn't.

And yet...impulse control.

"Who was Richard?"

Castiel lowers his eyes in a shamed kind of way, carefully marking his spot in Dean's novel with a receipt before lowering it to the ledge beside him.

"Richard was complicated." Castiel says haltingly. "We met in Russia, and we fell in love, and we moved in together...and I was happy." He fiddles with his shirt sleeve, smiling an odd watery smile of disappointment, skating a knife edge between control and break-down. "And when he killed himself...I thought he'd taken something of me with him."

Dean feels a tiny part of him snap, like an integral valve in his heart has broken open.

"Cas..."And before he can rationalise and subdue himself with guilt or worry, he's across the room, tugging Castiel into the awkward circle of his arms, feeling his spine under his hands, trembling.

"He...uh..." he's amazed that Castiel is still talking, the shuttered pain in his voice is so alarming. "He'd had trouble for a while...depression and this dark mood that just...it never seemed to go away...and I...I..."

Dean squeezes him and feel's Castiel grip wordlessly back, acknowledging the comfort and unable to speak for a moment without shuddering into tears.

It takes a long while for him to come back together, and when he does, finally, get the last of the sentence out, it takes a minute for Dean to string it all together.

"I couldn't do anything, I couldn't help." Castiel breathes; tear thickened words coming out soft and tired somewhere near Dean's clavicle.

Dean strokes Castiel's spine, and thinks of nothing but settling him, of abating the terrible guilt that trembles inside of a man he has come to feel for.

Later he'll think that maybe this is the greater betrayal of Sam – that he was there to mop up Castiel's misery instead of his brother.

Later, but not now.


	5. Chapter 5

Somehow Dean steers them to Castiel's bed and sits them down, resting Cas's head on his shoulder and laying an arm over his back. Castiel is at least back in control of himself, but in that odd stage of crying that Dean knows firsthand from raising his kids – the part where you don't really feel like showing your face to the world yet. He continues to rub the other man's back, fighting the overwhelming compulsion to bury his nose in the dishevelled dark hair beneath his chin.

Castiel sucks in a short breath and half laughs, the sound catching at the back of his throat. Dean pauses in his restless trailing of Cas's spine to look down at him oddly.

"This is a really stupid time to be thinking that you smell nice." Castiel says self deprecatingly, and Dean can't help but huff a laugh at the small but steady voice emanating from his chest.

"It's a nice thing to hear." Dean says quietly. "but a seagull did crap on me earlier."

Castiel sits up with alarming speed and looks at Dean with a mixture of horror and amusement.

"Where?" he demands.

"Shoulder." Dean smirks.

"Ugh..." Castiel wipes an arm across his face. "You...ugh!" He collapses into indignant scrubbing at his face and grumbles of dissatisfaction.

Dean watches him waver out of depression and into amusement. It's quite possibly the best thing he's ever seen, and the proudest he's ever been.

Castiel starts giggling to himself, proper little huffs and squeaks of laughter that remind Dean of Ben and set him off all over again, until the silent, sombre scene of human misery quirks itself into joint childish amusement. Eventually Castiel calms down enough to pat Dean's leg softly and let his grin shrink to a manageable level.

"Ahh...God, I needed that." He says, letting out one last huff of air through his nose.

"You feeling better?"

"Better." Castiel agrees. "Thank you, for...uh...asking, about Richard I mean." He smiles, a small, watery smile. "I'm not close to his family...I never get to talk about him."

"Any time." Dean says quietly, and he means it.

Castiel furrows his brows as if in deep thought, then leans forwards, quick as a bird, and kisses the side of Dean's forehead in a quick flurry of lips and scratchy stubble.

"Thank you again." Castiel says, voice rough and breathy and so close to his ear that he can hear Cas's tongue and teeth clicking around the words, his throat shifting as he swallows dryly. Without meaning to Dean lets out a breath, shaky and long, which alerts Castiel to how close they are, to how many lines he's just crossed. He's moving away, eyes lowered in embarrassment, when Dean wraps an arm around his waist and squeezes gently, turning his face into the miniature curls of hair just over Cas's ear.

"You're welcome." He rumbles back, and Castiel feels the words all the way down to his stomach.

Sam's voice makes them both jump.

"You know I can see you, right?"

Dean jerks away from Castiel and turns to the door, but it's still closed, and when he turns back to Castiel the other man is looking at the window.

"He's outside." Castiel says, tonelessly, just as Adam yells outside, "No fair Uncle Sam!"

Dean sighs and rubs a hand over his face. Castiel just droops a little, almost exactly like the snowdrops Anna had planted, aged eight, along the sidewalk in front of their house.

"I guess I'll go check on the kids." Dean says hesitantly.

Castiel nods, almost to himself.

"If you need me...I'm around ok?" Dean persists, and this time Castiel smiles at him, half lifting the corner of his mouth.

"I'm glad I met you, you know that?"

"Well you should be, I'm awesome." Dean quips, sobering as he looks Castiel in the eye. "But...I'm glad it was you in that store." When Castiel blinks questioningly he elaborates. "You were...exactly what I needed...and I'm...so, happy that you need me too." He half laughs to himself. "I guess it's fair...you know, I get this...amazing chance to talk to you, and I get to listen to you too."

Castiel looks prepared to tip into fresh tears at that, Dean's never known someone so open before and it's part terrifying and part amazing now.

"Plus you know..." he says quickly. "You're dating my brother...and i got bird crap on your face...so we're even there as well."

He will never get tired of hearing Castiel laugh like he's surprised he's capable of it.

Sam shouts from outside.

"Dean, damnit – I know you can hear me – come and control your spawn...they're kicking my ass!"

Dean looks at the window, then turns back to Castiel.

"Touch football?" he offers.

Castiel nods.

So that's how Dean spends the few hours after the tensest exchange of his life, running around on the twilit lawn of his parent's cabin like a lunatic, whooping his throat raw and tackling Sam whether or not he's actually got the ball. Dean and Adam play Sam and Castiel (with Ben on the sidelines attempting to referee, but really just whistling with his shell) and with the handicap of Adam being far smaller than either of the Winchesters, and Castiel not knowing the rules – the teams are pretty even.

Adam's whippy on his feet and Sam's giving chase with half serious threats and outstretched monster arms, but Adam flings the ball wide regardless and Dean snatches it out of the air, half surprised that he managed it. He's mentally congratulating himself when Castiel barrels into his side and throws him to the ground. Which is surprising in itself, but then, Dean wasn't paying attention and Castiel managed to his him with a fair run-up. Castiel's kneeling over him, one knee tucked between his and one on the ground on the other side of Dean's thigh. They're not touching, save for Castiel's hand on Dean's chest, spread fingered and pressing down into the softness of Dean's sweater.

Castiel sits back on his heels, sweeping his hand down embarrassedly and unfortunately sending a tickling line of sensation down Dean's thigh. It's a casual touch, and Dean's far past the teenage point where that would send him panting with arousal. But it's something warm and intimate...and so downright fucking tender that it makes him ache all the same. No one's really touched him like that since Lisa. Dean raises his hands to touch the fingers, hearing Sam and Adam struggling not far away. Castiel clutches his hand and gets to his feet, helping Dean up in one smooth gesture.

The exchange goes unnoticed, but it's another coin in the collection plate they've passed between them. It's a gesture, warm and good, that makes Dean want to smile. That reminds him of sitting on the couch under a blanket with Adam when he was four and terrified of E.T. – one of those moments that make you glad to be right there, just there, for those few minutes.

Castiel's come into his life and made him think all kinds of girly crap about him.

But it's true, and Dean kind of wants to tell Castiel about all the ways he reminds him of things his children have done, of the way Lisa made him feel. But mostly? He just wishes he could tell him that he's glad he's exactly the way he is, and that he's probably the last person Dean's ever going to fall in love with.


	6. Chapter 6

_The updates are coming, slow and steady I'm afraid. I lost a day to writing 'Ghost light' thanks for all the wonderful reviews on that btw made my week. I've got a pretty huge project in the works that's taking a lot of my plotting energy, but I've also got half a chapter for 'Cheerleader' in the works._

Dean's family, lovely as it is as a unit, is full of interfering dicks.

He's retreated to the utility room to...well, to sulk in essence, though he'd prefer to term it brooding. He's thinking about the novel that Castiel's reading, the one he wrote years ago and is still, despite the overwhelming lack of interest in it from anyone else, pretty damn proud of.

It's essentially a simple story, a man is taken over by an angel, taken away from his home and family, and undergoes so many trials in service to the celestial hitchhiker that when he is restored to himself he has no memory of his life. The remainder of the book detailed his struggle to find himself as he worked his amnesiac way across middle America, taking diner jobs and living from hand to mouth until he fell in love again - realising that he could never be the same man he'd been.

There's a lot of himself in that novel, and he knows that Cas is aware of that.

It's in the middle of this session of brooding that his mother decides to come in and put on a load of laundry.

"Oh, Dean, I didn't know you were in here." She tosses wadded up clothing into the washer. "Actually...I meant to have a little talk with you."

Dean tenses. Over the last four years 'little talk' has evolved into a euphemism for the 'you should start dating again' speech.

"You know...you're still young..." his mother begins right on cue.

Dean so does not want to hear this now. As if responding to some kind of mom-bat-signal that 'the talk' is beginning, his father opens the door and ambles in.

"Dean..." he glances at Mary for confirmation that an intervention is already in session. "We're worried about you..."

"I'm fine." Dean draws his feet up and swivels so that he can sit on the bed and not lie on it – a vulnerable position if ever there was one.

"You can go out there and meet someone...no one's expecting you to be celibate forever." His mother insists gently.

The idea that his mother is telling him to go get laid? That's going to stick with him, and not for the better.

Jo is the next person to come around the door, followed by Bobby and Ellen.

"Hey, why are we all in here?" Jo asks brightly.

"We're talking to Dean about his relationship deficit." John says, without even cracking a smile.

"Oh, yay." Jo sits on the end of the bed. "You do so need to get laid."

Dean looks to Bobby for sanity.

"It has been four years son." His almost-uncle says persuasively.

"Longest dry spell I ever had was two." Ellen chips in, one thumb cocked in the side of her belt.

Dean really hopes that this turns out to be a nightmare. Odds are not looking good. He figures in a nightmare he'd be naked, or on a plane or standing next to Will Farrell in his Elf costume.

"You have like..." Jo makes a hand gesture known to men everywhere. "Cleaned the pipes, right? 'cos four years without is like..."

Castiel and Sam enter the room on the tail end of that sentence.

Dean kind of wants to die.

Sam at least looks embarrassed. Castiel's eyes just go wide and he bites his lip apologetically.

Jo looks at him expectantly.

"I'm going for a drive." He announces loudly, standing up and shouldering his way out of the room.

"Be back by six." His mother shouts after him. "We're expecting company."

Dean freezes.

"Who?" he yells back in the direction of the laundry room.

"You remember that nice son of the Drapers? Balthazar."

"Shit." Dean clenches his fists.

"Yeah, him." Sam calls out, which at least makes him smile.

Aside from himself and Sam, Balthazar is the only gay male of his parent's acquaintance. Dean remembers him being very British, a little overweight and very lurky. That's about it.

He continues his way through the cabin and out to his car, starting the engine (what has accumulated a new grinding noise) and speeding off down the gravel drive like he's eighteen again and almost expected to drive like a dick.

Dean drives out to the lighthouse and parks up, sitting on the bonnet in the teeth shredding wind. He kind of wishes had a beer, that this could in fact be like one of the times he steamed out of the house as a teenager – that he could sit somewhere quiet and alone, drink himself stupid and forget about that hard stuff for once.

He'd done the same when Lisa told him she was pregnant.

Before that, when he'd fought with his Dad over the stupid stuff teenagers fight about, when he'd had a bad day at school.

The time he'd gotten wasted and tried to kiss Cory Jamerson after prom.

When Lisa was sick it had never been an option. He had Anna and Adam to look after, not to mention baby Ben and the house and his job.

He wasn't a teenager anymore, and this wasn't a case of hot headed idiocy.

Dean knew he was in an impossible situation.

He'd had his family, his whole family, and that had been enough for him, it really had. He wasn't looking for another person like Lisa, she'd been...well, he wouldn't have given up so much to raise kids with someone who wasn't worth it. And Lisa had been worth it. Smart, gorgeous, funny and able to cut through his bullshit with barely a pause for thought. Lisa may have been a woman, but she'd also been the love of his life.

Anna, Adam and Ben were the three most important things in his life. Dean couldn't imagine three better kids, three more perfect combinations of him and Lisa. They were worth every moment of stress over mortgage repayments and hospital bills and orthodontist visits.

They were worth making it to his age before he realised what it was that he'd been harbouring in himself.

It wasn't something he'd been 'missing' – he meant it when he said Lisa was the love of his life, his eventual acknowledgment of his attraction to men was never something that detracted from his happiness with her.

But now...now there was Cas.

Dean leant back against the windscreen of his car. They were quite similar to each other, Dean and his impala. Past it, a little rusty but still for the most part dependable. To most people just a fixture of a bygone year, but to the right person, the right set of eyes...

Some people saw the impala for what it was, classic, cantankerous and interesting, right down to the grooves in her tires.

Cas looked at him like that.

Dean could feel it in him, the look that Castiel gives him, like he's deep and dark and full of enthralling memories and experiences and ideas. Like he's surprising and new and good. The way Cas looks at Anna and Adam and Ben, not like they're amazing attachments of Dean, but like Lisa used to look at them – like amazing, new people who were still growing and constantly working to surprise them.

And Castiel, with his broken heart, his own 'love of all time' buried before they really had a chance.

Dean can relate. He can see the two halves of Castiel's grief, his guilt and his sadness.

He knows what that feels like.

The wind intensifies and the sky is already growing dark before and around him. Dean's legs and ass have frozen on the cold bonnet.

He gets into the car and drives back to the cabin, just in time to meet a black Mercedes on the drive.

The car pulls up and a tall, skinny blond guy gets out, underdressed for the cold in a grey tee and black blazer. There's a long silver chain around his neck with a small cross on it.

Dean climbs out of the impala, looking the guy up and down and decides that he looks kind of like Sting.

It doesn't really click with him until the guy crosses the short expanse of gravel between them and smirks at him.

"Dean, good to see you again darling."

"Balthazar?" He can't help the surprise in his voice, what he remembers of Balthazar is far from flattering to the gracefully nonchalant man in front of him. Clearly Balthazar is revelling in Dean's reaction to his own surprise transformation.

"Yes...God, it's been a long time..." he pokes his tongue into his cheek coquettishly "too long, I think."

"Going on, what, five years?" Dean supplies, his good upbringing prompting him into conversation.

"Yes." Balthazar draws it out, flirtatious nature taking a back seat to sympathy for a second. "I heard about Lisa...I'm so sorry."

Dean shrugs. He doesn't want to talk about Lisa with a stranger.

It occurs to him that at least he's met Balthazar before. With Castiel he was talking about Lisa within an hour of them meeting.

He hog ties that thought and shuts it in the trunk of his mental-impala – leading Balthazar into the house and calling out to the rest of his family.

No one answers.

Crafty assholes.

"We appear to be alone." Balthazar says conspiratorially.

"We do at that." Dean says, glaring into the silent cabin.

"So...any chance of a brandy?" Balthazar says, wriggling out of his blazer and displaying taught, tanned arms and stomach as he does so.

Dean, for the record that will surely be brought against him in the future, knowing his luck, is not actually attracted to Balthazar.

The dude's hot - no doubt about it. But he's not really Dean's type, as far as he has a type. He's a little too polished, and English and...Dean's kind of...afraid of Austin Powers...there, he said it.

And, he's never been one to just, throw it around. Once he likes someone he likes everything about them – he can't diversify his attentions.

So, it's hard to focus on tall, thin and blond when he's caught up in blue-eyed-tawny-and-unavailable.

Plus, he's never been a fan of Sting.

The guy just bugs him.

"Seriously? We're supposed to be hiding. Can't you wait to read it?" Sam hisses from somewhere in the kitchen.

Balthazar smirks at him. Dean frowns at the kitchen door.

"It's around here somewhere, and I think Dean wants it back soon." Castiel's voice pipes up.

"Are you sure? and I thought you had it in the..." Sam opens the kitchen door and spots Dean and the now radiantly amused Balthazar. "Oh crap."

"Hey Sam." Dean says with forced joviality. "Whatcha doing?"

Sam has the grace to blush.

Castiel peers around him, looking decidedly racoon like with ruffled dark hair and a black and navy plaid shirt on over his jeans.

Dean hates the little clench his heart gives at seeing him. Though he does realise two things on the heels of that guilt.

The first is that the book Castiel brought Sam into downstairs to look for is currently in Castiel's room where he left it earlier.

The second is that, Castiel's probably heard a little something about Balthazar Draper from his family – but that it was probably of the British-and-overweight variety.

Judging by the none-too-pleased expression on Castiel's face as he spots the new and improved Balthazar, he was not expecting a male model with an accent.

Dean can sense already that this is going to go badly for someone...

He honestly has no idea who.


	7. Chapter 7

Ok, Dean admits to himself, it is _kind _of funny.

He's sitting on the couch next to Balthazar, with Castiel and Sam sitting opposite – because like hell was he going to let himself be left alone with Balthazar (and like hell Castiel was going to leave them alone together). There's a tray of brandies and coffees on the table between them and the levels of awkwardness in the air would probably be able to power the sun.

Sam, for his part, is clearly not very comfortable with the way Balthazar is looking at him and Dean by turns – the look a cat gives a particularly fat and trusting canary.

Castiel is not happy about that look being given to Dean, his death glare has made that quite clear – the kind of glare an enraged racoon would level at a canary thieving cat before it skinned it alive and ate its liver.

Castiel however also looks a little guilty, probably because he isn't getting pissy over Balthazar eyeing Sam like the aforementioned delicious canary.

Sam seems not to have noticed this.

Dean feels a little shamefully cheered by Castiel's fury at Balthazar on his own behalf, but also guilty about feeling happy about it, guiltier still because of Sam's presence, and unnerved by Balthazar entirely.

Balthazar, for his part, seems to have correctly judged all their interpersonal hiccups and is finding the whole situation appallingly hilarious.

So yes, it would have been funny, if Dean was anyone else but himself, and if this was all happening in a movie that someone else owned.

Then it would be freaking hilarious.

"Fancy another?" Balthazar pours Dean another brandy without waiting for a reply. "So, Sam – tell me about Stanford, it sounds a fascinating experience."

"Well it was..." Sam starts, slightly put off by the site of Balthazar's hand sliding over Dean's thigh to squeeze it lightly.

He should try feeling it, Dean thinks sourly at Sam's bug-eyed expression.

"It's a great school obviously." Sam splutters, glancing sideways at Castiel for support, Castiel hurriedly rearranges his features, to signify that of course he wasn't going to leap forwards and remove Balthazar's hand from Dean's thigh through the medium of teeth. "But it uh...well, it didn't have that many...there wasn't really a..."

"Throbbing gay scene?" Balthazar supplies, fingers now idly stroking Dean's thigh, and...ok so he's only fucking human, it does feel kind of nice.

"Not really." Sam says embarrassedly, looking anywhere but at Balthazar's fondling hand.

Castiel can't seem to tear his eyes away. He swallows and his throat rolls dryly, his eyes carrying a mixture of fascination and anger.

Dean squirms under Balthazar's hand, trying to get him to remove it without causing a scene that he'll have to explain later. The hand moves higher up.

"Such a shame." Balthazar takes a sip of warm brandy. "But then, you got lucky anyway, didn't you?"

"Yeah." And the way Sam beams makes Dean shrink with shame. Castiel blushes and downs his own drink. "I guess I kinda did." Sam touches Castiel's hand and links their fingers together – and Dean aches with a loneliness much sharper than thwarted lust could ever hope to be.

"If it's alright with you two." Balthazar addresses Sam and Castiel but quirks an eyebrow at Dean. "I think I'd like Dean to show me the view from the back porch."

Castiel looks like he doesn't know whether to kill Balthazar or maim him first.

Sam blushes like a fourteen year old boy being shoved into the girls room. "Yeah...sure – we were turning in anyway." He smiles at Castiel, lighting up like the proverbial lantern.

Dean takes Balthazar's hand (mostly to get it off his inseam) and leads him out to the decking at the back of the cabin. Balthazar leans on the porch rail and grins like a Cheshire cat.

"Well, that was almost an Oedipal level of awkwardness." He purrs. "You, my friend, are in trouble."

Of course. Dean's inner nihilist sighs. Of course Balthazar would be the one to notice.

Damn the unusually perceptive English. Damn them to hell.

"Yeah, it's a shit load of fun." Dean growls. "Course, the being groped by a stranger part? That just added to the rollicking good time."

Balthazar smirks lasciviously.

"Well, I'm clearly not getting a second date out of this, thought I'd at least give myself something to think about later."

"You're a pervert." Dean's glare is only half admonishing, Balthazar is kind of amusing.

"I'm a bloody saint – compared to the looks that, oh so conflicted friend of our mutual mate Dorothy was giving you – I'm practically a nun."

Dean is sure he only understood about twenty percent of that, and that Balthazar is being purposefully and obstinately British in order to fuck with him.

Balthazar gives him that catty grin again. "You're in love with your brother's squeeze, and he looked like he wanted to bite my hand of for touching you." Balthazar rolls his eyes. "Not that I don't see the attraction, mind you." His eyes glaze in appreciation.

"Cut it out."

"Oh, Never." Balthazar curls his tongue. "But, if you ever get the nerve up to steal Cassy away, let me know in advance so I can get my taffeta out of storage."

"Not happening." Dean drops into a cane chair, feeling drunk and tired all of a sudden.

"It should." Balthazar leans back against the rail and looks up at the sky. "In all seriousness, him and Sam – it's not going to last."

"Yes, it will. If I've got a say in it." Dean glowers at him.

"You haven't and it won't." Balthazar licks his lips. "They haven't slept together yet – you can tell...well maybe you can't – but human beings like me can."

Dean can't deny the thrill that gives him. He'd like to, but he just can't.

"Grin all you like, Casanova." Balthazar leers, "Nothing's happening until one of you realises the obvious."

"Which is?"

"That Sam, much as you both love him, is not in this relationship – you and Cassy are." Balthazar drops off of the rail and shivers artfully. "That or that I would make a great alternative."

"I'll pass." Dean smirks. "but thanks."

"No problem. Better than the Royal Variety." Balthazar winks.

"Are you even English? Or did you just get hit with some kind of ray?"

"Limey through and through." Balthazar salutes. "And I'll be taking my leave now I think."

Dean shows Balthazar to the door and closes it behind him, leaning against it afterwards.

"I was kind of waiting for him to leave."

Dean turns around and Castiel is standing in the darkened living room, terry cloth robe open over his cotton tee and sleeping pants.

"Really." Dean's throat is dry all of a sudden.

Castiel pads towards him on bare feet. "I'm really sorry for being...well, I know I didn't handle that well."

"Maybe just bit of a carnivorous stare." Dean mutters.

Castiel shrugs his thin shoulders. "I couldn't help it." He licks his lips and Dean's heart stops. Castiel is right in front of him, sleep mussed and smelling softly of clean pyjamas and warm skin. "I just wish..." Castiel touches the front of Dean's shirt lightly. "I wish I had the right, you know? I wish I had the right, to tell people like Balthazar where to go...that you're mine."

Dean's chest feels tight.

"But you're not."Castiel frowns. "But I wish..."

And then Cas's lips ghost across his, and it's just a slight rub of warm, rough lips and a slip of wet skin. But it sets Dean alive and alight, and all he wants right now is to take Castiel up to bed and curl up next to him.

Castiel moves back and lips his lips again, chasing the taste of Dean across his skin.

"I'm so sorry...but you know I can't stay." Castiel says sadly. And Dean knows what that means.

"No..."

"I know, the worst thing I can do to you is hurt Sam...but this will get worse the longer I leave it." Castiel steps backwards. "I'll sleep on the couch tonight and...tomorrow I'll tell Sam I have to go."

"You know that's it right?" Dean says. "I can't...not to Sam."

"Hence the kiss." Castiel smiles sadly. "Take care of yourself Dean. I mean it." He says gently.

Castiel goes back out into the other room and Dean goes down to the utility room.

He supposes he should be relieved.

But he can't really feel anything beyond the prickling in his lips and the shiver of deprivation in his chest.


	8. Chapter 8

Michael shows up the next morning.

Dean would be irate if he had the energy. As it is, he's hung-over, heartbroken and not in any mood to cope with horny teenage boys pursuing his daughter.

Not that he's ever in that kind of mood.

Michael's car is a lemon yellow two door (and one of those doors is green) with mismatched hubcaps and only one wing mirror.

Dean takes it as an omen.

Either way, Anna bolts out of the kitchen when she sees him meandering up the drive, and Dean winces at the bang of the screen door. He drags himself out of the kitchen and follows after her, leaving his mother, the only other early riser, to start breakfast for everyone.

Anna is leaning into the window, missing Michael fiercely, when Dean coughs behind her and thumps the roof of the car.

"Mr Winchester." Michael says, respectfully, once he's disengaged from Anna's mouth.

"He drove all the way here to see me." Anna beams.

"Great. So, he'll have no trouble finding his way home." Dean frowns down at Michael meaningfully.

"Dad!" Anna is incandescent with anger. "You can't make him leave."

"Actually I can." Dean turns back to the boy in the car. "My daughter is underage, and you've known her for about ten seconds in the grand scheme of things. Get your crap-wagon on the road and go home."

Anna looks aghast, Michael just looks terrified, but he tries anyway.

"Sir...I love your daughter."

"If you still love her at eighteen, we'll talk – till then I don't want to see you again. Clear?"

He steps back from the car and thumps the roof again.

"You..." Anna is speechless as Michael turns over the ignition.

"I'm sorry, baby...I'll see you when you come back home. I love you." Michael promises. And then he's driving away.

Anna looks after him, so stricken that Dean feels terrible. He's been flying between bitter and angry and he knows absolutely none of that is to do with his daughter.

"You...are the worst father, ever." Anna grits out, fleeing tearfully after the retreating car. Dean runs after her and catches her around the waist, stopping her from running all the way away.

"Anna...I'm sorry." Anna struggles and sobs, still looking after the car. "I'm...I worry about you." He mutters against her tangled, windswept hair. "Your Mom, had a hard time, the hardest – because we thought we were ready to be adults."

Anna relaxes tearfully.

"I'd give anything to make sure you get to have a life, before you commit it to someone else." Dean says, trying to not to sound as clumsy as he feels. "If that means being the bad guy here? I'm not ok with that, but it's necessary."

"I'm not going to make a mistake." Anna pleads shakily.

"Neither did we – I don't regret it, not for a second. But it wasn't easy. It's kind of my job to make life work out good for you."

"You're wrong about him."

"I hope I am." Dean sighs, releasing Anna. She doesn't run. He turns to leave.

"Dad."

Dean freezes.

"Thanks for...for not being a _total _asshole about it." Anna allows.

"Like I said – it's my job."

He gets a small smile for that.

He walks slowly back to the kitchen, only to find that everyone is now awake and looking out of the back windows of the house. Bobby and Ellen are the furthest from the glass, only mildly interested. The only person absent is Christian.

"What's going on?"Dean asks, though, if he'd had a minute to think about it, he probably wouldn't have had to.

"Castiel is breaking up with Sam." Jo informs him.

Dean feels sick.

"Right, now?" He clenches his hands. "Should you guys be...uh...watching?"

He's universally ignored.

Over the top of Jo's head he can see Cas looking small and apologetic, twisting his hands as he talks to Sam, who's face is shuttered and sorrowful.

As if on cue Castiel glances at the window, widens his eyes, then looks back at Sam. He picks up his bag from the porch and backs away, going down the steps and off towards his car. Cas gets in and the car starts, slowly following Michaels trail of turned gravel down the drive.

And just like that, Castiel is gone.

Sam trudges back into the kitchen and, he looks so fucking heartbroken, but Dean can't, he just can't comfort his brother over his loss. Not while he's feeling it too.

Ignoring his mother's questioning look, Dean goes upstairs into the room being shared by Ben and Adam, who are currently outside feeding the seagull. He leans against the window sill and looks down at the cracked paint on the outside of the glass.

Castiel is gone.

Which is good, in a way...probably. You can't want what you can't see, after all. Except, Dean thinks that he's wanted Castiel, at least in the abstract, even before he met him. It's the kind of notion he'd have sneered at mere weeks ago, but it's true. Castiel is everything he wanted, and a bunch of stuff he'd never even considered. He was a wonderful person – was. Because this is it, this is the end of the last few days of half guilty pleasantries.

Castiel is gone.

He stands there for almost two hours, and he can hear everyone downstairs becoming involved in a raucous game of charades, an attempt to cheer Sam up.

Sam. Fuck, Dean has barely thought of him, and yet Sam has lost Castiel in the same way he has – Sam has lost a boyfriend, a potential lover, a trusted partner. Dean has lost a future that was never his to claim.

How can he be so selfish?

Dean walks to the door, if Sam need him, needs his older brother to tell him he's amazing and that Castiel never deserved him, then that is what Dean will do. He'll play his role as Sam's protector, he'll cheer him up and set him back on his feet, just as Sam had done for him when Lisa died.

He'll be a good brother, a good father and a good son.

He'll be everything Lisa was proud of him for. That will have to be enough. That will be enough.

"Hey Dean." Sam greets him as he comes downstairs. His brother is in the hall, carrying a cup of tea into the living room. "You want in on this game?"

Dean nods. "How's it going?"

"Well, Mom and Dad are winning." Sam smiles weakly. "I'm...I'm doing ok, it...uh...well, it hasn't been that long, better now than way down the line, right?"

"I'm sorry." Dean says, and he is, for more than Sam will ever know if he has any say in it.

"It sucks." Sam nods. "But...I don't know, it'll get better and maybe I'll see if differently, later."

Dean hopes that's true. That Sam will find someone, anyone, who makes him happy.

Dean's phone chirrups.

"You want to get that?" Sam gestures to the living room with his cup and walks towards the door. "We'll be waiting."

Dean takes the phone out, flips it open, and hears Castiel's voice on the other end.

"I'm sorry." Cas says breathlessly.

Dean walks out through the kitchen and on to the porch.

"It's done now." He says tiredly, fighting the punch to his chest that Castiel's voice constitutes. He thought he'd never hear him again.

"I left." Castiel says numbly. "It was...Dean it was the worst thing I've ever done, I'm so sorry it was to Sam."

"I think it's the best, worst thing to happen to him." Dean digs his thumb nail into the wooden side of the porch. "I couldn't take it if he'd found out."

"I feel..." There's a blustery sound that must be the wind blowing against the speaker, Dean thinks, until he hears a heavy shuddery sound and realises that Castiel is crying.

"Where are you?" Dean can feel his thudding heart cutting off his breath.

"I left...but I still feel...I...I know it's about Sam – it has to be about Sam...but I..." he half laughs, a broken sob chasing the sound. "It's been two fucking hours and I miss you."

Dean can't remember hearing Cas swear before, but here is, a profanity born of desperation that echoes his own. Castiel is hurting over what he's done to Sam, they both are, but separation is just salt in the wound. It's cruel that the only thing that can make them feel anything besides guilt is each other.

"It'll be ok." Dean says, with more conviction that he feels.

"I don't see how." Castiel's voice is small.

"Yeah...I was kind of just..." Dean can hear Sam and his parents in the living room, he lowers his voice and tries to ignore the part of his mind that says this is a bad idea.

"Can we say goodbye. You know, properly?" Part of him doesn't want this conversation to end, doesn't want to let go of Castiel's voice.

Castiel however, misinterprets this and goes quiet for a moment.

"Dean, when I said I left...I haven't gotten very far."

Dean swallows.

"Where are you?"

"The bookstore." Castiel's breathing is erratic "I...I was kind of just sitting in my car, wondering if you'd pick up if I called."

"I did." Dean says stupidly. "I mean...Christ Cas, I will. Whenever. Just, if you need me, or somebody at all – you call me."

"Ok." Castiel sounds like he's marshalling himself. "The same goes for...don't lose my number, Dean – promise you'll call me if you need it."

"Of course I will." Dean grips the phone until the plastic creaks, already sweaty under his fingers. "but I can't...I can't come see you, after today."

"I know." Castiel breathes deeply. "Just...get here – please." His voice drops to a rumble. "Dean, I thought I could do this, I thought I could just go but..." Dean can almost see the expression on Cas's face, torn up and ashamed and wanting. "but...I need you. I..."

"Don't."

"...love you." Castiel finishes, and damns them both.

Dean closes his eyes and takes the last step over the cliff.

"I love you too...give me half an hour."


	9. Chapter 9

Dean as never driven so irresponsibly in his entire life. He's pretty sure that if Adam ever finds out what he's done he'll never live it down.

Still, it gets him to Castiel in just under twenty minutes.

Cas's is the only car parked outside of the bookstore, and Castiel is leaning against it, his canvas jacket wrapped tight against the wind. He straightens up as Dean drives into the lot, following the progress of the car with intent eyes.

When Dean pulls in and steps out of his car, Castiel is already standing beside it, looking jittery and wretched, his eyes red ringed.

"You must think I'm the neediest man alive." He says conversationally, and Dean shakes his head, pulling him close and wrapping his arms around Castiel's chilled body.

"I missed you too." Dean inhales the scent that hides in the soft curls at Castiel's temple. "Which is...impossible, but I do."

Castiel touches long, cold fingers to the side of Dean's unshaven face.

"I'm sorry if I'm making this harder." He breathes

"Not possible." Dean assures him, slowly shifting so that he can bring his lips as close as possible to Castiel's mouth. The other man's breath picks up and he lets his eyelids slip down expectantly.

"Please..." Castiel murmurs, and Dean closes the gap, their matching plumes of chilled breath meeting and disappearing as their mouths collide, Dean's lips warming Castiel's numbed mouth as the other man grips him tightly.

When they finally part, Dean runs his fingers through Castiel's hair.

"Goodbye."

"I guess, yeah." Castiel rests his forehead against Dean's shoulder anyway. "I just...I'm clearly bad at letting go."

Dean kisses him again.

"Me too." He says quietly. "But...uh..."

"I know. You should get back. Thank you for coming out here to see me." Castiel slowly backs away from Dean and puts his hands in his pockets as if trying to prevent them from returning to Dean.

Dean leans back and opens the door of the car.

"I love you." He looks directly into Castiel's eyes. "You're amazing. Have a great life."

"You too. You deserve it." Castiel backs off and Dean watches him walk towards his car and climb in. He watches Castiel drive away for a second time. It doesn't hurt any less.

"Hey Dean."

Dean turns, looking across the car at his brother.

"Sam." He feels frozen, caught and guilty and totally incapable of moving.

"I biked down to get the papers." Sam says. "Store's not open."

"I...I just needed to take a drive."

"I heard about Anna's boyfriend showing up." Sam shrugs. "Sucks."

"Yeah." Dean sighs.

"You know I saw you right." Sam says numbly, his brow furrowing.

Dean can't say anything. He literally can't force words out of his mouth.

"We broke up two hours ago." Sam's voice grows to a sharp yell.

Dean flinches.

"You're my brother. How could you do this?" Sam picks up his bike and starts to walk away.

"Sam, please..."

Dean slams the car door and runs after his brother. Sam doesn't slow down, doesn't turn. He just keeps on walking.

"Sam, I'm sorry..." Dean stops walking and raises his voice towards his brother's retreating back. "I'm sorry, but I love him." He catches himself. "Loved him, ok, and now he's gone. I wouldn't do that." He calls louder. "I wouldn't do that! Sam!"

Sam drops the bike and whirls round, stalking back towards him.

"You wouldn't steal, my boyfriend?" Sam growls.

"No." Dean holds up his hands.

"You'd just...sit there knowing he was going to leave me...then watch him break up with me and sneak off to kiss him not two hours later?" Sam glares at him. "And I knew ok? I fucking...knew it, the second you two met it was like..." He waves his hands impotently. "Like things just moved and you were at the centre of everything for him...he read your book." Sam shakes his head. "Of course I knew."

"I didn't mean for it to happen."

"Yeah, but it did." Sam folds his arms. "It happened and you...you haven't looked at anyone that way since Lisa...and he's just some guy I met at the gym." Sam looks at him disbelievingly. "Some guy who likes the treadmill and who I took out on a few dates. I brought him up here because I really liked him, straight away. But I didn't love him the second we met...if you'd have told me, how you felt...I might have understood, might." He holds up a hand. "But this...that was a...dick move Dean." He goes back to his bike and snatches it up.

"Sam...I can't...I don't know what to say."

"Don't tell me you're not going after him, don't tell me it's over." Sam turns around again, anger and frustration evident on his face. "He wants you, you want him and clearly I was just standing in the way. So if you're at all serious about him? Get the hell in your car and go get him. I'll forgive you later...maybe. But not if you just stand there, telling me it's over."

Dean stands, fixed to the spot.

"Go!" Sam yells at him.

And Dean turns round and runs towards his car.

Dean's driving before he really thinks about it, following the route he knows Castiel must have taken. Bursts of thought flare up in his brain, what the hell has he done to Sam? What are his kids going to think of him? How the hell could Castiel have gotten so far? But can't entertain them, he has to focus on the road, on driving.

Then he realises what he's doing. What Castiel would never want him to do. He's neglecting hic children, he's being selfish, so selfish, and he hasn't even asked them how they'll feel if he decides to bring Castiel into their lives.

It takes every ounce of self control he has, but he slows the car, pulls over and around, going back the way he came. Halfway back to the house he spots Sam cycling ahead of him. He slows to a stop and rolls down the side window.

"Thought I told you to get lost." Sam huffs.

"I have to go talk to the kids."

Sam glances at him, setting a foot on the road for balance.

"That serious huh?" He says, seemingly surprised.

"I wouldn't hurt you for nothing." Dean sighs. "Do you want a ride home?"

"...Yeah." Sam folds down his bike and puts it in the back of the impala before going around to the passenger seat and getting in. "Thanks for stopping."

"Thanks for talking to me." Dean says levelly.

"Well...you have a couple of decades of not being an asshole to your credit...thought I should give you a chance." Sam says, raising his eyebrows.

"I know I don't deserve it."

"No, you don't." Sam sighs. "But...you kind of deserve him. I mean...everything with Lisa, and he...clearly loves the kids." Sam twists his hands in his lap. "I kind of knew there was stuff he wasn't telling me...and I think maybe he can tell you that stuff and...you can understand it, better than I could."

"You're going to be ok...I mean it, you're great and...you're going to..."

"Yeah, I don't need that talk right now." Sam cuts him off. "I'll hurt, I'll get over it. But...don't tell me I'll meet someone else, because it is not what I want to hear right now." Sam looks at him sideways. "My brother is going to be happy again for the first time since his wife died, not just ok, but happy...that's what I want to hear."

"You're a good brother."

"Well, statistically speaking one of us had to be." Sam mutters, but he's managing to smile.


	10. Chapter 10

_As always, you can follow me on twitter at JollySnidge. More updates are on the way for my other fics._

"...What. The. Hell, Dad?" Adam says slowly, a deep frown marring his face.

Ben jiggles his Barbie upside-down, looking at the floor.

Anna is glaring at him like she's trying to become spontaneously pyrokinetic.

"I know this looks bad..." Dean starts.

Anna scoffs.

Adam gives him a 'no shit' glare.

Ben holds his Barbie up and smacks Dean on the arm with it.

"Ow."

"Kind of serves you right." Adam grunts. "You stole uncle Sam's boyfriend."

"After, like, a week." Anna hisses. "You 'fell in love' in like, a WEEK, Dad." She crosses her arms. "Care to explain that?"

No one expects the spawn inquisition. Dean rubs a hand over his eyes and lets out a long breath.

"I fell in love with Cas, and I can tell you it's real, because he's...awesome, and I'm not a teenager. I know what this feels like and I've only felt it once before, with your Mom."

Anna's hardened expression relents a little.

"You didn't tell us." Adam says stubbornly.

"I was trying to work things out...I didn't even think it could have a future, and now...your uncle he says that it can...that it might be ok." Dean feels a coil of nerves in his belly at that thought. "But I wanted to check with you, because...he'll never, replace your Mom, not for me, and not for you. He just...he's a good guy, who I love and I wanted to know what you thought of him...maybe being around still, when we go home."

There's a long, tense silence.

"If he is...can I start seeing Michael more?"

Adam nudges his sister.

"What?" She whines.

Ben fiddles with his doll, raising both of its arms and twisting them around.

"What do you think buddy?" Dean asks gently.

"Cas is nice." Ben mutters.

"I think so too." Dean tells him.

"Nicer than Balthazar." Adam chips in. "He was a little...creepy."

"You saw him?"

"We were...maybe spying a little." Adam shrugs. "He seemed kind of like a British Hugh Heffner."

Dean feels vindicated.

"But Cas...he's pretty cool." Adam offers. "I wouldn't mind...if you guys wanted to date...as long as you don't get all...gross...about it."

Adam jerks his elbow into his sister's side.

"OK!" Anna slaps him on the knee. "Cas can be your...boyfriend or whatever. He seems like the kind of person who'd listen to you, no matter how young you are." She mutters pointedly.

"You're not letting go of that any time soon are you?" Dean sighs.

"Nope."

"Fair enough." Dean gets to his feet. "Then...I'm going to go, get him."

He doesn't move.

"Dad...are you...scared?" Adam raises his eyebrows.

"Shut up." Dean says automatically.

"You are." Adam grins disbelievingly. "That's kind of...cute actually."

"Maybe a little sad." Anna frowns.

"Well, that too." Adam concedes.

"Enough!" Dean raises his hands. "I'm going, now." He turns and leaves the room, already taking his car keys out of his pocket.

Ben tugs Adam's sleeve and whispers something to him, batting the air lazily with his doll.

"Good point." Adam mutters. "We're coming too!" He yells after his Father, grabbing a resistant Anna by the hand and scooping Ben up with his other arm, heading after Dean's retreating back.

The drive back to the city is filled with pointed comments on love at first sight (Anna) back seat driving (Adam) and the girlish squeaks of someone conversing with a Barbie (Ben). Dean has Cas's address, given to him by a reticent Sam under the glare of both his parents (who don't seem to know which son to side with and so are now acting pissy with both of them) and the whole way back into the familiar labyrinth of the city all Dean can do is go over that address over and over again.

He and Sam have lived on opposite sides of the sprawling urban nightmare since they were old enough to have their own places. Their lives never intersect, except when they plan to meet up, because Sam has his loft in the upscale district and Dean has his run down suburban house with decade's worth of toys buried in the yard.

Sam has a gym close to his apartment, he buys his organic groceries from the corner market and works a few blocks from his apartment.

He'd met Castiel at the gym, Dean knew that.

But Castiel's address, is four blocks from Dean's house. Right next to the garage where he has the unreliable impala serviced.

Four blocks and this whole thing could have gone so differently.

Dean drives there and somehow persuades his rowdy brood to remain in the car while he goes into the building and up the stairs to knock on the door labelled nonsensically 'Cat Nevick'.

There's no reply.

Dean locates the super (an elderly Korean woman, which might explain the bizarrely distorted name on Cas's door) but she tells him that she hasn't seen Castiel (Catsteal) for a week.

Dean goes back out to the car.

"So? Was he there?" Adam asks.

"No." Dean frowns. He's a little worried, Cas already had a history of losing people. And although Dean acknowledged that they'd only met a week ago, he was concerned for the other man and where he might have gone.

"So...are we going to look for him?"

"Where?" Dean asks helplessly.

"Well, when you're upset, like if it's Mom's birthday..." Anna says, hesitant to help. "You always go for a drive, or you start trying to dig that sandpit out of the mud in the yard."

"Which you should stop doing, because that thing's really in there." Adam points out.

"Anyway." Anna cuts him off. "What does Cas do, you know, when he's pissed or sad?"

Dean thinks for a while, about Castiel and how he practices yoga, how he went running with Sam and of all the mentions of swimming in the sea when he was travelling and homesickness got the better of him.

"He runs." Dean says.

"Ok, so...where does he run?" Adam says.

"It's raining." Anna says. "It has been since we got halfway here – he's probably not outside."

"He'd be at the gym then." Adam grins. "Shit, we're like CSI's."

Dean doesn't even bring him up on his swearing.

He drives to the fancy gym near Sam's place and parks up in the street. The building is square and made of concrete and has huge windows at street level, each with a machine in it so the bankers running on their lunch breaks can see the starbucks across the street.

Dean spots Castiel almost before he realises that he's seen him, though it helps that the gym seems mostly empty. Cas is running on a treadmill at the end of the row of machines, his grey T-shirt is soaked with sweat, his legs pumping along to the music in his headphones, arms swishing tightly at his sides. His face is a rictus of concentration, eyes squeezed shut and an almost pained expression on his features as he pushes himself harder and harder.

Dean gets out of the car.

"We'll wait here." Adam assures him, taking the look on his Father's face as proof that, while this guy isn't Mom, because his Mom is gone, Cas is the best person to be in their family right now.

Dean walks down the street a little way, coming to a stop right in front of where Castiel is running into nothingness.

Cas unfortunately chooses that moment to open his eyes, catch sight of Dean and loose his excessive pace on the treadmill, diving for the off button even as he legs are snatched out from under him, leaving him collapsed and breathless against the control panel.

Dean waves a hand nervously.

Castiel disentangles himself from the machine, snatches the headphones from his ears and, casting a disbelieving glance at the window, rounds the treadmill and exits the gym, coming onto the cold, rainy street in only a thin, soaked tee and sweat pants.

"You're...here?" Castiel says quietly. "How...I mean, why are you..."

Dean presses him up against the side of the building and kisses him, hands finding purchase on damp cotton and feeling Castiel soften into his hold, until the smaller man is looking up at him, an odd mix of wonder and dumbfounded-ness on his face.

"You mean it?" Castiel asks.

Dean nods, holding him tighter, feeling Castiel hug him back.

"Promise me one thing?" Cas whispers.

"Sure, anything."

"You'll talk to Ben? About the Barbie?"

Dean turns to see Adam shooting him a thumbs up through the rear window, Anna has the side window wound down so she can wave, and Ben is shaking beach party Barbie against the glass like she's on fire, or having some kind of fit.

"As long as you're there to back me up." Dean sighs, humming at the feel of Cas's face moving closer to his, warm breath chasing away the chill of the rain.

Castiel kisses him.


	11. Epilogue

_Here is the epilogue as promised. As always, you can follow me on twitter at JollySnidge. _

Dean has never claimed that he kept his bedroom tidy.

In fact, he'd go as far as to say that since he'd moved out of his parents house, no effort whatsoever has gone into keeping his own personal room in any liveable state, and since Lisa had passed away, even less than no effort had been given to maintaining his bedroom. He's actively made it messy just so he could sleep, jammed in with all his clutter, as opposed to alone in a bed that suddenly felt too big.

If he'd known, if some cosmic sign had descended from the heavens to tell him that he was going to get laid any time soon...he probably would have cleaned. They've been dating for a week, and to be fair that was probably enough notice for him to actually do something about his room, but it was amazing how three kids could eat up your time.

They also only have an hour without the kids, so the hell was he going to clean now.

As it is he and Castiel stagger over discarded shirts, books and broken toys he'd put aside to throw out or mend. Cas has it the worst because he's going backwards, being currently plastered to Dean's front. Dean tips them both over onto the bed, finding purchase on the wrinkled sheets. Castiel stiffens suddenly, groans in a way that definitely isn't out of pleasure and rolls to the side, removing the skipper doll that had poked him in the spine. Dean tosses it to the side and pulls Castiel up the bed, (right under Ben's mural of the tiger with the sombrero rendered in crayon).

Dean pulls Castiel's shirt off over his head, shedding his own and kissing his way down the other man's chest until he's squirming, eyes closed and mouth sucking in harsh breaths. Dean's just insanely happy that they made it here, he can barely stop grinning long enough to kiss the man underneath him.

"Ow." Cas mutters as their teeth bump.

"Sorry."

Castiel presses his hand to the rising bulge in Dean's jeans, snatching his breath away. Dean rocks down on him and they pick up the pace quite nicely from there.

The front door slams.

Dean's head shoots up.

"Damn it." He groans.

Castiel's hips rub almost subconsciously against his own. They stay otherwise still and silent, listening expectantly. When no further sound comes Dean pushes Castiel back against the mattress and sucks lightly at the side of his neck. Castiel's hands rub at his naked back, trailing the edges of his nails lightly.

"So, we have to be quick?" The smaller man gasps.

"Rabbit quick." Dean agrees. "Lightning...highschool groping quick."

"Romantic."

Dean slides his hand down the front of Cas's jeans. "Complaining?"

The strangled sound he receives in reply is reward enough. Castiel squirms against his hand, clutching at Dean's shoulders as he raises his hips and grinds into Dean's warm palm.

"It's my turn!"

Dean winces at Anna's shrill yell from downstairs.

"Is not! You watched that buffy marathon yesterday." Adam bellows.

"Because you weren't here, it doesn't count!"

Castiel's shaking hand finds its way into Dean's jeans without warning, rubbing and pressing fast and furiously. Dean buckles, redoubling his efforts on Cas's own erection.

"But I want to watch Smallville." Adam shouts, his anger raised anew.

"It's shit!" Anna responds.

Castiel moans, Dean covers his mouth with one hand, shushing softly.

"I'll tell Dad."

Castiel's eyes open wide, eyebrows shooting upwards. Their hands move faster, hips bucking urgently.

"Dick!" Anna yells, her voice followed by feet hammering on the stairs.

They break apart, still too hot and unsatisfied. Dean pulls his shirt on and sticks his head around the door just as the kids arrive on the landing, still squabbling.

"I gave you money for icecream." Dean growls.

"We were going to miss smallville" Adam complains.

"Which is still shi...Dad...what's that on your neck?"

Dean slaps a hand over the rapidly forming hickey and ignores the sound of Cas trying not to laugh.

"Ew." Adam says blankly. "Dad, if you wanted to have sex you should have just said." he nudges his sister. "I'll tivo it."

They thunder off back downstairs to collect Ben, and then the front door slams again.

"Thank Christ." Dean sighs.

"Keep one foot on the floor!" Anna yells from outside, waving cheerily at the bedroom window.

"And use protection!" Adam adds.

"Hello Cas!" Ben bellows.

Castiel sticks his head out of the window sheepishly.

"Hi Ben." He waves.

Dean flops down on the bed and nearly impales himself on half a Barbie with a G.I. Jo torso attached to it. He's not sure Ben has taken their talk to heart.

He assumed this was punishment for stealing his brother's boyfriend.

Not that Sam seemed to mind all that much.

And, on a related note, things did seem to have worked out rather nicely for Balthazar.


End file.
